This has been an episode I've wanted to make for a long time but even I was surprised by the sheer amount of evidence we have about ancient fossil finds. The art team as equally inspired and made this awesome Caesar riding a T-Rex shirt: printerpanther.com/products/caesars-t-rex-invicta%C2%AE-official-design
By the way the gold mining ants story is true. They were Marmots a tunneling rodent in the native tongue that means something like "Mountain Ants" the area they occupied is full of gold dust on the border of India somewhere I forget but it's a dangerous contested area today.
I like the idea that stories and myths of monsters and giants didn't just come out of thin air but are based off the remains of prehistoric animals ancient people came upon.
I read that the Greek myth of the Cyclops is based on a mammoth skull. The giant hole in the skull where the trunk connected could be misinterpreted as a very large damaged eyesocket.
@@PyrusFlameborn yes, but they still killed plenty of elephant, and likely heard stories of Russian mammoths that still lived at the time. They were likely already familiar with them.
Its definitely one of the subjects that fascinates me as well. I'm excited for part 2 where we can talk more about what people though about these fossils
Romans would have never found a T Rex, as the species is only found in North America, but there were plenty of other large therapods the Romans could have found
I thought they had a wider range than that but upon further study it looks like you are right. In looking things up I also saw articles from this week about the similar creature to the t-rex being found in Egypt recently so indeed they may have made some impressive finds
Imagine ancient history, Egyptian, Indian, Roman all mixed with freaking dinosaurs. A journey around the world seasoned with dragons, treasures, legends and mysterious discoveries... This documentary felt like 1 second long for how much enjoyment it brought to my life
Its so interesting how cautious they were around fossils, undigging the dead was likely seen in many cultures as lines of being cursed, so the peoples of antiquity treated the fossils with respect probably out of fear of the monster's curse or some undead deity.
Which would explain why many of those bones ended in temple. It was both exotic and worthy offering to priest and gods, but also a way of to give the mysterious entity back to the gods, ending any curse or bad luck the dead mysterious entity might bring.
I can clearly remember the college history/literature class where we read the Mesopotamian creation myth, and how the class speculated on whether the primordial monsters suggested in the tale were inspired by findings of fossils in ancient times.
On your mention of the big bones being found in coffins: I remember reading somewhere that some bronze age peoples would find fossils and put them in coffins, thinking they were heroes of a previous age, rearranging a mammoth or elephant skeleton to be a human, etc. IDK if its true or not, but hearing you mention the coffins towards the end sparked my memory
I think a whale fossilized skeleton in the desert could passed for a giant flying snake in the eyes of ancient people. It's really long, has no back limbs and sometimes the flipper bones could be missing and the spread out ribs at the front could remind someone of the shape of a cobra's hood or even some sort of wings!
@@joebobjenkins7837 a freshly killed Baleen whale skeleton on a beach must be a far cry from a flattened rocky broken Basilosaurus skeleton found in the middle of the desert. It's not called Basilosaurus (King Lizard) for no reasons either! Even early paleontologist mistaked it for an ancient reptiles!
You dismissal of herodotus's claim of good digging large ants ignores that ot was just a mistranslation. There actually mammals in the region which frequently unearth gold, but since the greek word for ant sounded so similar to the indian word for marmots and thus the greeks believed them to be talking of ants.
You're probably referring to the fact that the Greek name for any is "myrmex (genitive, myrmicon)". Even then, I fail to see the connection with "marmots".
The theologian St. Augustine of Hippo was an amateur paleontologist, spending some of his time digging up bones in North Africa when he wasn't performing his duties as Bishop. He also recognized that there does not have to be a conflict between the creation account in the book of Genesis and the fossil record as he wrote in City of God.
@@ApexCalibre Do you really believe that jwaish shit? 6 days then god rested on the 7 and evertime god create something he says it's good as if he don't know what is good and what is not
@@starcapture3040 Anything’s possible 🤷🏻♂️ I always keep an open mind. Science either hasn’t yet or simply can’t explain everything. Who knows maybe science is man’s way of explaining how God made things happen idk
@@ApexCalibre The genesis story in the Torah is copied from Egyptian and mesopotamian sources. it's already known fact. Torah wasn't written by moses but by Rabbi claiming it was. I'm not an atheist but I believe the torah and John Bible are edited and mere copies of re fashioned stories in different narrative.
Fossil bones show up all the time, yet we only ever looked at them through scientific lens within the last couple centuries. Imagine how much clearer our understanding of the deep past could have been have we been able to retroactively apply scientific rigour on all the specimens stretching over thousands of years, easy pickings for sure since those came readily out of the ground, that instead feed mythologies of the peoples. Maybe, if the bones were long gone but the myths remain, we could just as well have our science lens trained on what we preserved with words. Anyway, can't wait for pt. 2!
The problem with that is anything they wrote is filtered through their lense of what they thought it was. They might describe something as a mythical beast but there's no real way of knowing what condition the bones where in and what assumptions they made.
You mention a part 2 of this video, but I can't find it on your channel. Is it still being made? Was it taken down? Your coverage of this subject is so fascinating that I must know!
To think the Romans were able to make reconstructions of what fossils may have looked like when they were alive just based on measurements and estimations is beyond amazing. They really were ahead of their time
I may missed this, but Those curly nautilus shell fossils? Those are actually fossils of an extinct relative of the Nautilus called Ammonites. Often found in limestone quarries where the Romans mined for concrete, they were given their name after Amon, an Egyptians deity depicted as a ram with large, curled horns.
I remember reading a book when I was a child, that claimed the mythology of griffins could be traced back to a specific protoceratops fossil embedded in the wall of an ancient temple in what is today Turkey. The frill had fractured and moved over the back giving the impression of wing bones to ancient observers. Wish I could remember the name of the book.
There is another great book on the same subject called 'The First Fossil Hunters' by Adrienne Mayor. The book you read might actually be based on her research.
When I was almost 16, after graduating from junior school, I volunteered for archeological work in a small town, near my native city. It was in a remote forest, and there was a huge rock, that historians suspected to be an ancient camping area for hunter-gatherers. We were a band of teens, and our task was to clean the rock and get rid of all the earth and rotten leaves and wood. At some point, two of us (me and an older boy) found big stones, strange in shape. The archeologist came and was very happy : it was two prehistoric blades made of stone. I was shocked by the "simplicity" to find them : they were barely a few inches beneath the ground. So the archeologist told us about strategraphy and stuff. ^^ 4 years later, as a student, I had a teacher whom told us about ancients civilizations discovering, as I did, ancient fossiles and strange objects. One of my pal even made his thesis on this subject. Now, I am curious to know if such discoveries influenced ancient mythology, and led to the creation of creatures and monsters we know today.
A few years ago I came across some stories that suggested Herodotus' gold-digging ants were in fact marmots from Mongolia. These marmots were trained to dig around areas where there's gold and when they came up their fur was covered with gold dust, which were then collected by their trainers.
It is certainly plausible that some legends/myths came out of fossil finds. After all the head of the lindwurm (dragon) from medieval Klagenfurt can still be seen today. Turns out it was a wooly rhino skull. A good story can survive even if only based on a single specimen and we all know how stories can grow and spread.
@@theawesomeman9821 actually, dragon comes from the latin word draco which means snake. Also dinosaurs are not lizard if thats what you are trying to imply
Very cool! I researched this back in High School for a paper I wrote. It was amazing to learn what ancients thought when they discovered bones of giant monsters.
I want to point out that ceratopsidae which Triceratops belong to, is strictly confined to Laramidia, the western continent of todays United States that was split in half by the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous. To use Triceratops as an art asset in the video along with the suggestion that it was a potential inspiration for dragons, is thus an anachronism in multiple ways. Neither did it or it's chasmosaurie or centrosaurine relatives inhabit the geographical area during their existence, their fossils was most likely never exhibited in Rome in ancient times as this would furthermore imply exploration and possible trade between the old world and the new world over massive distances. The only advanced ceratopsian found outside Laramidia, is Sinoceratops. As the name imply, it was found in China. Even if fossils were found and traded, fossil transport is notoriously difficult even today with modern technology at our disposal which make it highly improbable that any ceratopsidae material ever made it to Rome or it's neighbour provinces.
@@InvictaHistory your art is visual aids for the audience not forensic specimens for peer review. If it helps the lay audience understand and does not explicitly state Romans found the triceratops, I see nothing wrong with it.
Basal ceratopsids originated in the lands that are now China, and eastern Asia, so they weren't confined to modern-day USA. It's more likely that these 'dragons' found in India belong to theropod dinosaurs, with the horns perhaps referring to bony ridges or crests above the eye orbit.
Greetings from Hungary! It doesn't have to do anything to this subject, but there was a British company named "Invicta Plastics" once, which produced plastic dinosaurs from the 1970's to the early 1990's.
There is actually pictorial evidence of ancient fossil discoveries. I recall a Greek vase painting, reproduced in the magazine _Archaeology_ some years ago, depicting Heracles rescuing Hesione from the 'sea monster'. The 'monster' looks exactly like a skull eroding out of a hillside: in fact, modern paleontologists are said to have identified it as an Eocene mammal - possibly a camelid of some sort.
Thank you so much for giving some attention to Philostratus! He's a fascinating author to read and, for those who are interested, Philostratus talks about the giant fossils in his book "Heroicus". It offers one of the best examples of fossil discoveries in classical antiquity and how they were viewed by Greco-Roman society. In his Heroicus, Philostratus' character of the vine-tender uses the fossils as evidence for the giants of Greek mythology as well as to prove that the heroes of the Trojan war like Achilles, Ajax Protesilaus, and Hector, really were abnormally huge. I'd honestly highly recommend it for anyone interested in how fossils were viewed in antiquity, and especially if you're interested in the hero cults of the time.
Sure would explain the stories and folklore. I can definitely see how someone could claim a dinosaur skull and skeletal remains be that of dead dragons.
Implying that the Indian “dragons” might have been based off the skulls of ceratopsian dinosaurs is misleading, as these are not actually known from India. While they were native to Asia, when they lived, India was an isolated island continent similar to modern Australia, and so they never reached that landmass.
Implying that any vague story correlates to a specific species is definitely problematic and its a big red flag I mention in the script. The artistic depictions in this video are certainly creative liberties more than proven hypothesis.
For the ancient European Classical writers, "India" was a rather nebulous area to the east and not necessarily equated to the modern state of India or the Indian subcontinent as we identify it today.
This was a fascinating video to watch. Years ago I read a passage in one of Michael Crichton's books that stuck in my mind: that if we counted the number of hours going back in time from the present to the ancient Egypt pyramid building period, and then multiplied each of those hours by ten years going back in time from the present, that's approximately how ancient the dinosaur period was. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's a neat little analogy. And on a geological scale, a few millions years is only a blink of the eye.
I wonder what ancient Gauls thought about the bones of elephants they found in the alps many years after hannibal's invasion never having experienced them ?
Thanks for this! A bit unexpected, but wholly original and interesting . I always knew the Chinese and Medieval dragons were were inspired by fossils, but never realized ancient Europeans or Egyptians documented them. On the other hand, one must wonder what was lost because they didn't know how to protect or preserve what they found.
"Certainly it's possible that some romans dug up a T. rex skull" Nope. T. rex only lived in the western part of North-America, Romans never seen any XD And frankly, it's very unlikely that Romans dug up dinosaur remains, those are very hard to find, even today. The most plausible, is that they've dug up some cenozoic mammals bones, so mammoths, rhinoceros, etc.... ^^
Dinosaur fossils have been found in parts of what was once the Roman Empire, it is very likely they found them as well as prehistoric mammals But you are correct in that they did not find a T Rex skull there, as T Rex was native to North America. However, other large therapies have been found in Europe and North Africa, some of which are other species of tyrannosaur
@@ecurewitz Yeah, of course we've found dinosaur bones. But it's still very hard to found XD They probably found one or two, but the majority of the fossils they've found were cenozoic beasts, because today the majority of fossils we found are cenozoic beasts ^^
@@krankarvolund7771 but they still found dinosaurs In parts of Southern Europe, Cenozoic deposits are exposed at the surface, which is why many Cenozoic animals were found. But the Roman Empire was vast, and in m any areas, it is Mesozoic and Paleozoic ricks exposed at the surface. It is those Mesozoic outcrops where dinosaurs were found, most notably in much of North Africa as well as Britain and several other parts of the empire
@@ecurewitz Yeah, we found dinosaurs because we look for it, most of the time, there's some lucky findings, often when digging deeper than Romans would, but that's not the majority ^^ We don't find more Cenooic fossils just because we have more Cenozoic rocs, it's also because Cenozoic is very recent, and so there had been less time to destroy the fossils ^^
Frankly speaking... After looking and reading up about recent feathered dinosaur discoveries from recent years... I am not surprised that the giants and beasts of legends were actually based off fossils that were found
I actually once had a midnight thought about mammoth skulls being seen as evidence for cyclops in ancient times. Crazy to see such a thought being discussed seriously in this video!
While it has been popularized by pop-science, there is no actual case where one can say with certainty that X fossil inspired Y monster. The ideas put forward, like the griffin being based off Protoceratops and cyclops being inspired by elephant skulls, have many problems with them and are not actually taken seriously by archaeologists and paleontologists. The so-called “dragon bones” sold in Chinese folk medicine on closer inspection also turned out to not be dinosaur fossils at all, but instead largely come from Pleistocene horses or sometimes even clamshells.
No. All peoples all cultures had first hand experiences with dragons (dinosaurs) the term dinosaur is only from the 1800s. Literally dragon and dinosaur are the same thing. " Large reptiles." Look it up. Roman Empire had " long neck" dragons fight int he collesium and in China we're they recorded everything an Emperor did , states very clearly that smaller dragons pulled the Emperor's chariot. This is ridiculous that we have people telling other people that sharks and crocodiles predate the dinosaurs but they survived but not even 1 or a few dinosaurs survived? That's illogical and irrational and foolish to think that dragons or aka dinosaurs in some small part of the earth survived just as the other creatures that supposedly came before them. .a brontosaurus the size of a building is still a brontosaurus if it's only the size of a truck living int he jungle.
We found fossil records from the Romans! The romans, by simply recording: the event, what the fossil looked like, the place and the dates, created some sort of primitive fossils database! That just blew my mind! I was just thinking they would have just been :"oh look a weird rock! Looks like a big bone! Let's put it in a temple or something!" While they were keeping quite complete written tracks of discoveries all over the world! 🤯
@@tsutenkakurobo9642 except the ones in the video I don't have other examples as it's something I learned about thx to this video. Indeed, now that I read it again I might have gone too far😅. I was just really surprised some romans were that interested about fossils it was worth sending reports of findings from far away. A bit too emotional of me
@@tsutenkakurobo9642 I've watch a nice video about comparative anatomy. The guy used famous "dragon bones" found in old churches all around Europe as example and it was fun to discover what species were those bones from. Unfortunatly It's in french.
At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, in the Ancient Greek section, there is a case on display which shows people attacking a “monster” The monster is in fact the fossilized skull of an unknown species of monitor lizard Nest part: museum staff misidentified the skull as belonging to either a prehistoric whale or prehistoric giraffe
First, they probably didn't found giant lizards skulls. Second, you'd be surprised how ignorant men can misinterpret fossils, elephant skulls were mistaken for cyclops, crocodiles were thought to be dragons, etc... ^^ The first registered dinosaur fossil had been identified as an elephant skeleton XD
Did the romans meet the dinosaurs? Sure they did, they drank a cup of coffee together, then ankylosaurus knocked over the tower of Pisa. That made the romans really angry and they killed all the dinosaurs. It took the goths 55 million years to avenge them. If that wouldn't have happened, the roman inginuity would have progressed so that we would've had hovercars by the time of the first world war and my great grandfather would've been a trillionair for not investing in the tyre-industry. But in the end it is not money that matters in life, it is the structural integrity of buildings in a dinosaur infested world. So take what you can learn from this and spread the wisdom.
Crazy how fossils can influenced the culture and mythology of ancient civilizations. I wondered a lot before how x culture came up with that idea of monster, for example the Kraken
In Situ Fossils do NOT get scattered as a cadaver remains would be scattered by animals or weather. Greatly interesting topic and always love a Herodotus reference.
Considering that the world is 3000 years old, I'm sure the Romans did encounter dinosaurs. Maybe they even domesticated them, like in the historical documentary cartoon "The Flintstones."
In the written works of Josephus he mentions a skeleton of a giant being on display in Jerusalem. It was widely believed to be the bones of Goliath that Israel kept as a trophy. Maybe they were dinosaur bones constructed to look like a giant man.
They did. Look it up. They had long neck "dragons" fight in the collesium . The first emperor of China had his chariot pulled by dragons. All cultures and languages and peoples in every corner of this earth have stories of their people dealing with large reptiles of some kind. Like the Roman Empire we put thousands of species of creatures to extinction. To say also the sharks and crocodiles predate dinosaurs (dragons) , yet they are still alive but dinosaurs are not is pure foolishness. It's not even logically or rationally sound.
That was cool, never thought about Dinosaurs and Romans together before, they do have a connection the Latin names and dominating the known world in there era.With all the building works and quarrying the Romans did they must have found a stack.
I heard once that the Blackfoot Indians of Alberta referred to dinosaur bones as "the grandfathers of the buffalo" and that Eurasian tribes believed that mammoth bones and carcasses were the remains of a large subterranean creature.
Then we have the Cretan mammoth, check out its skull. It is vaguely humanoid in shape with a large hole in its forehead for the trunk that looks a lot like an eye-socket.
I don't know if your artists see this or not so please tell them that I think they're incredibly talented and they do an excellent job at driving the story.
“Roma Invicta!” the centurion called, calling the advance via the aquila. His great scaly steed roared its own battle cry, three horns lowered and ready for the charge.
Years ago, i heard a tale about some ancient Greeks (?) that uncovered a mastodon or mammoth, mistook the trunk hole for an eye socket, and decided it was a huge cyclops warrior. They were also said to have reburied it. They laid out the bones as if they were human, so anyone digging it up years later would think it was a giant.
Fossilization can happen in a large pan of water, and can occur in less than a couple of years. There just need to be minerals to leech out of the water and enough water to keep the item covered. Thank you for pointing out the fact that it doesn't take millions of years to do this. I've met too many people in the field who couldn't comprehend this.
I wanted to write a book about romans and dinosaurs when i was young, i imagined the cover page of my book would be inside a colosseum where gladiator holding a sword stands in front of a T-Rex.
